


Another Sky

by Zelos



Series: Ready Room [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America's shield - Freeform, Coda, Friendship, Gen, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was telling that people kept <i>briefing</i> him on Steve Rogers.</p><p>Spoilers for Captain America: the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nefhiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nefhiriel/gifts).



It was pretty hard to find her—she didn’t exactly leave a phone number. But all that hovering around the hospital eventually proved fruitful: Sam spotted her speaking to the doctors (asking about the status of Cap, probably) and hoofed it before she could escape.

“Ma’am. Agent Hill.” He wasn’t sure what rank a SHIELD agent (second in command? Top uncompromised agent? High up honcho?) was equivalent to, but he has the feeling she vastly outranked him.

Hill looked him up and down, her mouth twitching. “Maria,” she corrected. “One is only an agent where there is an agency to belong to.”

Right. “Maria,” he agreed. Sam glanced over her shoulder towards the gaggle of (SHIELD?) doctors. “How is he?” No visitors were allowed in the ICU, obviously, but the doctors wouldn’t even _tell_ him anything: “I’m a friend of Cap’s” had not impressed them in the least.

“Prognosis is a full recovery. Would’ve been a faster recovery if he didn’t let himself get beaten up _and_ shot, but that’s Rogers for you.” Another mouth-twitch that was half-frown, half-sigh. “I’ll let them know you’re on the list of allowed visitors once he leaves ICU.”

“Before that…” Sam straightened, meeting Hill’s gaze squarely. “Can I have the travel coordinates of the last carrier when Cap was on it?”

“Not sticking around?” That sounded…disappointed. Almost.

“I can’t _see_ him,” he retorted, because yes, he would rather stay, and he has the kinks in his spine in the shape of the hospital chairs to prove it. “And Cap needs his shield.”

Hill studied him; her voice was clipped. “We don’t have resources to spare.”

“Not asking for any,” he answered evenly. “Just where to start looking.” He stared straight at her, matching scrutiny for scrutiny. “Cap needs his shield. He’s not right without it. I’ll be back.”

A sharp smile flashed across her face; Hill produced a pad of paper. “What’s your email?”

 

His email pinged two hours later with a map of the Potomac River, annotated with the direction that the last Helicarrier had been travelling when Steve had been on board. In addition, the map also had an appendix that recorded the day’s wind speeds, river current speeds, the altitude of the carrier, and a calculated fall trajectory of the shield based on those parameters. All of that information was summed up in a neat colour-coded grid over the river, marking locations of landing ranging from _possible_ to _most-likely_.

That woman made competency into an art form.

He’d been packing a bag at his apartment, throwing clothes into a duffel bag when a voice sounded behind him, “going diving?”

Sam’d heard that voice too many times in the last few days to mindlessly throw a punch, but it was close.

“Fishing, more like,” he answered instead.

“I thought you were a bird,” Natasha said.

“And sometimes we eat fish,” he shot back, with just enough of a smile to disarm the bite. “Listen…Agent Romanov…you tell me the instant he’s out of ICU, y’hear?”

“You might as well call me Natasha,” she said, but she was smiling too. “Gonna fly back at first word?”

“Even if I have to flap my arms,” he agreed.

 

Third day after the war, there were no helos in the air looking for survivors: all those who hadn’t been rescued were dead and sunk. Boats were scattered on the river as their occupants dredged the riverbed for bodies. A crane was being assembled on the bank.

Despite his words to Natasha, Sam belonged in the air, not under, or near, the water (he hadn’t known how much he’d missed the sky until he put on his wings again). But you did what you could to pitch in. He was _useful_ here, rather than pacing the hospital halls waiting for news that no one would tell him. This he could do.

Besides, with the cred granted to him by working alongside Captain America, no one questioned his lack of (Underwater) Search and Recovery cred.

Well, mostly.

“I thought you were an airman?” Colonel James Rhodes—the commanding officer overseeing the river—asked him when he reported in.

“So are you, sir,” Sam said smartly.

Rhodes snorted at the sass, his smile framed by his suit’s helmet. The star on Rhodes’ chest made him look like an armoured version of Cap, minus the stripes. “They figured I’ve the most firepower of any one individual if shit goes down again.”

 _For which side?_ Hill and Fury’s paranoia was rubbing off on him. But it didn’t really matter. He was just here to recover bodies and a shield. His life wasn’t worth much to HYDRA, even if Rhodes had turned.

“Heavy lifting,” he said instead, nodding.

“You’re on the boats,” Rhodes said briskly. “You can man the hooks. I hope you’re not squeamish.”

Sam thought of Steve, streaming blood and water, waterlogged and pale and dying on the river’s bank. Thought of muffled screams behind operating room doors, with not one useful drug in sight. Thought, very briefly, of Natasha’s expression on national television as she laid herself bare. “No, sir.”

 

Rhodes’ suit wasn’t meant for search and recovery. His systems couldn’t differentiate between debris and bodies any more than conventional sonar; both showed the riverbed as a blur of foreign matter, body parts and debris. They dredged the Potomac the old fashioned way: with divers and boats and grappling hooks. Two cranes and Rhodes completed the task force, dragging out the larger pieces of concrete and rebar.

Most of the bodies didn’t come out whole, not with everything else that went down. Crushed skulls, bloated bodies, and jutting shards of bone were commonplace finds, as were ripped clothes, chunks of concrete, and unattached limbs.

“You looking for something in particular?” Rhodes asked him, when the colonel spotted Sam making tick marks on a printout of Hill’s map. “Someone?”

“Cap’s shield,” Sam answered, pulling free a shoe with a foot still attached.

Rhodes looked over at a piece of Helicarrier barge just being dragged out. “Needle in a haystack.”

“We felled a government conspiracy and a chunk of our fair capital city with a team of five,” Sam replied with an easiness he didn’t quite feel. “I figure we’re either still riding on that luck or we’re overdue for some good karma.”

Rhodes barked a laugh, white teeth flashing. His eyes, however, looked pained. “Well, we keep hoping so, at least.”

Sam stared at Rhodes’ gleaming suit, remembering of who made it (and remembering a wormhole in the blue Manhattan sky). He didn’t answer.

“You did well, Wilson,” and Rhodes’ voice was serious now. The colonel studied him, assessing.  A lot of people have been assessing him as of late.

Sam disagreed, because Steve bleeding out on the riverbed was in and of itself a mile-long list how things could’ve gone better. But he took the praise in the spirit it was meant and nodded without comment.

Rhodes stared at him for another long, slightly uncomfortable moment before he lifted off again. As he flew off, Rhodes’ mechanized voice drifted back: “I’m sure I can find someone to make you another set of wings if you ever want to suit up again.”

Sam looked up sharply, but Rhodes dove back into the water before the colonel could see Sam’s face.

 

Natasha texted him (when the hell did she get his phone number?) on the second day of the search: _Any luck?_

Considering he’d be contacting her (and Hill) as soon as he found it, Sam didn’t see the need to reply. He was just about to put his phone away when a second text came in: _It’s a Stark special. Vibration-absorbent. Don’t look for it on sonar, look for dead spots._

Sam stared at the message for nearly a full minute before it sank in; he whirled around, already yelling, “Colonel? Colonel Rhodes?”

His phone chose that moment to beep again. Hill, short and sweet: _He’s waking up._

“Aw, shit.” He had _promised_. But it’d be so much better if he could have something to show for his time.

War Machine (given the recent turn of events, Rhodes said War Machine was the less controversial of the two names) landed beside him, dripping river water. “What is it?”

Sam shoved his phone into his pocket and briefly elaborated on Natasha’s text.

Twenty minutes later, War Machine soared out of the water carrying a discus, gleaming with the hopes of men.

Rhodes landed on Sam’s deck to offer him the shield. “Give him our best.” Even mechanized, Rhodes’ voice sounded oddly soft.

Sam wiped off the shield (gleaming red and blue and silver—the paint had scratched) with one ragged sleeve. “Yeah.” He stared at Rhodes’ faceplate and managed a small, rueful smile. “Thanks.” He didn’t just mean the shield.

Rhodes rose into a hover, the repulsors of the suit roaring dully. “When you’re ready.”

“Huh?” Sam pretended not to understand.

Rhodes let him have his pretense. “Lemme give you a ride.”

 

Being carried by War Machine was its own indignity (he preferred flying by his own means), but it was short-lived—there was no faster way to get to Steve’s hospital. Sam’s pride has suffered worse.

Besides, his pride was more than made up by the fact that he was carrying _Captain America’s shield_ on his back.

“Do you want to come in?” Sam asked. He has no authority to grant visitation, but he liked to think he was a good judge of character and Rhodes has made his shortlist of people to trust.

Rhodes managed something resembling an armoured shrug. “I’ve a job to do right now. So do you.” He rose into the air. “Keep an eye on him, Wilson.”

Sam stared into the skyline until War Machine blinked out of sight, then ran into the hospital double-time.

Hill might’ve actually smiled at him when she spotted the discus on his back. But all she said was, “he’s dozing on and off.” She looked at him steadily. “He sleeps a lot when he’s injured. It’s all he can do, since drugs don’t work. Ice packs are good, if you can change them without waking him up.”

It was telling that people kept _briefing_ him on Steve Rogers. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Natasha stopped by three times. He didn’t hear her enter for any of them. But she brought decent food (Steve’s share included), and she also threw in a brief summary of the side effects of Steve’s metabolism. Also included was another change of clothes, a handful of novels and magazines, his phone charger, and a portable speaker. Sam decided not to point out that he didn’t give her a key.

Natasha busied herself with Steve’s chart, then straightened Steve’s ice packs. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “He’s got a habit of worrying, and worrying about, his friends. And…trusting them, too.” _Possibly too much_ went unsaid, but not unheard.

“Duly noted,” Sam said dryly, but Steve was hardly the first brave idiot he has seen. Hell, Sam counted himself among those numbers, alongside all of the others weaving between blossoms of fire in the sky.

“I’ll see you two later.” Natasha cast a soft, brittle smile at them both before leaving.

Sam didn’t miss the plural.

He missed the wings, missed flying—missed the _rush_ , god. Being grounded hurt more this time than the last. But he has another fight now, one on the ground, supporting the ones that came back. And if one of the ones that came back wore a spangled suit, well.

“On your left,” Steve mumbled thickly from the bed, eyes closed.

“On _your_ left,” Sam retorted with a grin. When Steve failed to see around corners, Sam circled to the other side of the bed and lifted the shield.

Even with one eye swollen shut, Steve lit up like the sun.

 

Sam sent Rhodes a thank-you card before they left. As a finishing touch, he added at the bottom: _Can you put in a good word for me with Stark?_

Missions changed, missions got completed. Eventually, someday, his mission would include the sky again.

**Author's Note:**

> I've no idea where this came from—it was supposed to be a fluffy piece on how Steve’s shield got to the hospital. I am outright incapable of writing proper fluff.
> 
> The last scenes in the movie always seemed like several days after to me, instead of immediately after: I have a thing about (somewhat) realistic medical procedures, and several gunshot wounds, repeated head trauma from a metal fist (that can crack concrete), and falling from the Helicarrier (!!) counts as majorly traumatic injuries to me—enough so that even with the serum keeping him alive, Steve’d be due for several days in ICU.
> 
> The vibranium shield is rather inconsistent in MCU: Howard Stark says “it’s completely vibration-absorbent” and Peggy’s bullets drop at Steve’s feet without ricocheting; however, Thor’s hammer attack got reflected so completely that it levelled an acre of forest. I went with Howard’s assessment.
> 
> Rhodey went from Lieutenant-Colonel to Colonel after IM2—probably got promoted because of his contributions to the Vanko mess.


End file.
